Archive for the 'politics' Category

Community and Mission

Published
by
Mike
on September 22, 2006
in Books, Salt and Light, missional and politics
. 61 Comments

“I have come to realize that aiming for community is a bit like aiming for happiness. It’s not a goal in itself. we find happiness as an incidental by-product of pursuing love, justice, hospitality, and generosity. When you aim for happiness, you are bound to miss it. Likewise with community. It’s not our goal. It emerges as a by-product of pursuing something else. Those who love community destroy it, but those who love people build community.” - Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture

I agree — sort of. The community is drawn together in authentic love and honesty when they, together, pursue the mission of God. It’s like the community that formed in The Wizard of Oz or the Lord of the Rings trilogy: unlikely people are brought together by engaging in a mission larger than themselves.

And yet . . . true community is itself the goal. Or at least a taste of the goal. God is seeking to bring all things together again — think “new creation” and “reconciliation” — and that means that community will break out.

But this community can be spoiled if it turns in on itself, forgetting that the work of God continues.

- - - -

CBS hoped there would be Katie Couric fans who would follow her to CBS. Diane and I have done just that. From Brokaw to Couric. Last night we got to see Jim Wallis talk about how many evangelicals are taking seriously the challenge to be “completely pro-life” (to quote Ron Sider). He kept resisting efforts to pin him as a person on the right or left, insisting that it isn’t about being a Republican or a Democrat but about being a Christ-follower who goes deeper in the call of the kingdom. When he said he thought he was something of a moderate, Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, said that the only thing in the middle of the road is dead cats and smelly skunks. That added so much to the segment.

- - - -

Sorry I haven’t been very involved in comments the last few days. Just haven’t had time to keep up. Thanks for the discussions, though. Page loads have bumped up a bit the last couple weeks. Don’t know what that means in terms of actual people — but thanks.

Published
by
Mike
on August 11, 2006
in Books, Salt and Light and politics
. 78 Comments

My friend Ryan Porche introduced me to this picture of the new statue in front of a Memphis church. The Statue of Liberty holding a huge cross with the words “liberty through Jesus.”

My response? First, I’d have to say that I don’t know anything about the church, and I’m sure it’s made up of people seeking the Way of Christ in this world.

However, I’m not sure it could be said better than Randall Balmer does in his excellent new book Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical’s Lament. After tracing the history of Baptists in America from Roger Williams to Isaac Backus to George Truett (who defended the separation of church and state at the Capitol Building in D.C. in 1920), and after pointing to two key ideas of the Baptist tradition — adult baptism and liberty of individual conscience, “generally expressed in the shorthand phrase ’separation of church and state’” — and after showing how Christians in the best of that tradition have sought to have an impact on the morality of their society without seeking to intertwine their faith with one political party and without eviscerating the first amendment, Balmer wrote:

I came to Texas in search of Baptists. What irony! There at the heart of Baptist country, Baptist principles regarding the separation of church and state have all but disappeared. What was once a proud and mighty — and defining — tradition of ensuring that government did not interfere with religion and religion did not meddle with government has withered beneath the onslaughts of misguided individuals who seek to impose their own views on the rest of society. The gospel is compromised, American Protestantism is imperiled, and the republic itself suffers from the massive disappearance of Baptists from the American landscape.

Never in my life did I think I would say this, but America needs more Baptists — real Baptists, not counterfeit Baptists like Roy Moore or Rick Scarborough or Richard Land or Jerry Falwell, all of whom are Baptists in name only. Our nation loses something very crucial as Baptists vanish from the American landscape. “The Baptists were the first propounders of absolute liberty,” John Locke once observed, “just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty.”

Christianity itself needs more Baptists, women and men willing to reconnect with the scandal of the gospel and not chase after the chimera of state sanction. We need women and men prepared to stand on conviction and articulate the faith in the midst of a pluralistic culture, not by imposing their principles on the remainder of society but by following the example of Jesus and doing what Baptists have always done best: preaching the gospel and not lusting after temporal power and influence.

The Cross and the Sword

Published
by
Mike
on August 3, 2006
in Books, Salt and Light, faith and politics
. 67 Comments

Even though my beliefs are orthodox (and somewhat conservative, if defined properly), I find myself less and less comfortable with the Evangelical world. In America this has come to mean one way to vote, one nation to defend. It tends to see all truth as CLEAR and OBVIOUS to anyone with a brain. It shuns doubt, mystery, and nuance.

Maybe others will find this article from the NY Times stimulating.

It begins:

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. — Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing — and the church’s — to conservative political candidates and causes.

The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?

After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God’s ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul — packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals — was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share.

For more, follow the link.

- - - -

Who is Agnieszka Tennant — and will we get to read more from her? Her article entitled “What (Not All) Women Want” in the current issue of Christianity Today is phenomenal. (I can’t find it online to provide a link.)

She responds to the book Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. Here are a few of her words:

The gist of Captivating is this: “Every woman longs for three things: to be swept up into a romance, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to be the Beauty of the story.” I used to want such things — when I was a girl who didn’t understand how her womanizing father messed up her heart and when I fed my imagination with soft heart-porn like Pretty Woman. But doesn’t there come a time when we must grow out of the kind of self-regard that was cute when we were girls?

What do I long for? To trust God always, no matter what happens. That’s my trembling prayer.

And this: To figure out why, in a country as filled with devout churchgoers as my motherland, Poland, corruption is much more prominent and insidious than in the reputed atheistic countries of Europe. That’s why I’m going to grad school this fall. I want to do my little part to fight a battle against corruption. It will be an adventure. (But wait: Does this kind of talk make me sound like a man, since “in the heart of every man is a deserate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue” — and since intellectual curiosity doesn’t seem to mark a truly Captivating woman?)

I may not be an Eldredge kind of lady, but I know beauty when I see it. And the most regrettable failure of Captivating is its tame idea of beauty. “Beauty is core to a woman — who she is and what she longs to be,” Stasi Eldredge writes. “Beauty is what the world longs to experience from a woman.” She gives examples: “Pioneer women brought china teacups into the wilderness, and I bring a pretty tablecloth to eat on when my family camps. We wear perfume, paint our toenails, color our hair, and pierce our ears, all in an effort to be ever more beautiful.” Sure. But there’s so much more.

Beauty draws blood to the heart and speeds up the pulse; sometimes it evokes repentance. I wish more Christians were comfortable with its pull. Too often, beauty raptures us so forcibly that we fear it will lead to temptation. So we avert our eyes. What if we turned our ecstasy into worship? . . .

True beauty is precarious, unbound.

It cannot be confined to pre-approved tastes or to one gender. It is wild at heart. Like Christ. And like the complicated men and women who follow him . . . .

Jim Wallis on the Wider Call of Being Pro-Life

Published
by
Mike
on April 5, 2006
in justice, missional and politics
. 50 Comments

From Jim Wallis at sojo.net:

For more than a decade, a series of environmental initiatives have been coming from an unexpected source - a new generation of young evangelical activists. Mostly under the public radar screen, they were covered in places such as Sojourners and Prism, the magazine of Evangelicals for Social Action. There were new and creative projects such as the Evangelical Environmental Network and Creation Care magazine. In November, 2002, one of these initiatives got some national attention - a campaign called “What Would Jesus Drive?” complete with fact sheets, church resources, and bumper stickers. The campaign was launched with a Detroit press conference and meetings with automotive executives.

Recently, more establishment evangelical groups, especially the National Association of Evangelicals, also began to speak up on the issue of creation care. Leading the way was Rich Cizik, NAE Vice President for Governmental Affairs, who, on issues like environmental concern and global poverty reduction, began to sound like the biblical prophet Amos. Cizik and NAE President Ted Haggard, a megachurch pastor in Colorado Springs, were attending critical seminars on the environment and climate change in particular and describing their experiences of “epiphany” and “conversion” on the issue. Cizik was quoted by The New York Times as saying, “I don’t think God is going to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us what we did with what he created.” In 2004, the NAE adopted a new policy statement, “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility,” which included a principle titled “We labor to protect God’s creation.”

When the same New York Times article, written in March 2005 by Laurie Goodstein, noted that “A core group of influential evangelical leaders has put its considerable political power behind a cause that has barely registered on the evangelical agenda, fighting global warming,” the politics of global warming changed overnight in Washington, D.C. Previously, advocates around climate change and other environmental issues were simply not a part of George Bush’s political base and their concerns were not on Washington’s political agenda. But the NAE constituency is mostly part of the Republican base and the new environmental concern was not unnoticed by the White House - the very day the article came out the White House called the NAE to ask what policies they were most concerned about.

The next year saw NAE participation at many major climate change and environmental meetings - both domestically and internationally - and a series of press stories about the new evangelical environmentalists, including a full page interview with Rich Cizik in The New York Times Magazine.

In January, the Religious Right reared its head. In a letter addressed to the NAE - signed by 22 of the Right’s prominent leaders, including James Dobson, Charles Colson, Richard Land, and Louis Sheldon - they said, “We have appreciated the bold stance that the National Association of Evangelicals has taken on controversial issues like embracing a culture of life, protecting traditional marriage and family.” They then went on to say, “We respectfully request, however, that the NAE not adopt any official position on the issue of global climate change. Global warming is not a consensus issue.” It was a clear effort to prevent the NAE from taking a stand on environmental issues and even to veto the whole effort. Stick to our core issues they implied - meaning abortion and gay marriage. Five years ago, so powerful a group of conservative Christian leaders probably could have tamped down this new evangelical effort that served to broaden the range of moral values and issues of biblical concern. But not this time.

A month later, on Feb. 9, a full page ad appeared in The New York Times with the headline: “Our commitment to Jesus Christ compels us to solve the global warming crisis.” The striking ad announced the Evangelical Climate Initiative, and was signed by 86 prominent evangelical leaders, including the presidents of 39 Christian colleges. I was speaking at one of those schools shortly after the ad came out and talked to their president who was one of the signers. “I’m tired of those old white guys telling us what to think and do,” he said. He is a younger white man who decided to take a stand, even if it was against the old guard of the Religious Right.

The Evangelical Climate Initiative is of enormous importance and could be a tipping point in the climate change debate, according to one secular environmental leader I talked to. But of even wider importance, these events signal a sea change in evangelical Christian politics: The Religious Right is losing control. They have now lost control on the environmental issue - caring for God’s creation is now a mainstream evangelical issue, especially for a new generation of evangelicals. But now so is sex trafficking, the genocide in Darfur, the pandemic of HIV/AIDS and, of course, global and domestic poverty. The call to overcome extreme poverty abroad and at home, in the world’s richest nation, is becoming a new altar call around the world - a principal way Christians are deciding to put their faith into practice.

In places such as the U.K., Christians are rallying around the call to “Make Poverty History.” Many are comparing that call to the cry of British Parliamentarian William Wilberforce and an earlier generation of evangelical revivalists in the 18th and 19th centuries who changed history in England and America by their steadfast commitment to end slavery. For many, poverty is the new slavery. Again, this is especially true for a new generation of Christians. The connection between poverty and all the other key issues - the environment, HIV/AIDS, and violent conflicts around the world are increasingly clear for many people of faith.

The sacredness of life and family values are deeply important to these Christians as well - yet too important to be used as partisan wedge issues that call for single issue voting patterns that ignore other critical biblical matters. The Religious Right has been able to win when they have been able to maintain and control a monologue on the relationship between faith and politics. But when a dialogue begins about the extent of moral values issues and what biblically-faithful Christians should care about, the Religious Right begins to lose. The best news of all for the American church and society is this: The monologue of the Religious Right is over, and a new dialogue has just begun.

Mel

Published
by
Mike
on February 25, 2006
in politics
. 46 Comments

Most years no one wanted to bother running against Bob Hunter. It wasn’t worth the time and effort. Bob has been such a respected state representative that he always cruised through elections–with or without opponents. Bob was never afraid to cross political boundaries to support important causes.

This year he isn’t running for reelection because he’s battling prostate cancer. So my friend Mel Hailey has tossed his hat in the ring.

Mel will soon know who his opponent is. There are four good candidates in the Republican primary. And if Susan King happens to slip past Rob Beckham (who’s surely the favorite to win), Mel will have to work to get Diane’s vote. Diane, like many public school teachers, is a big fan of Susan. She has worked hard, following in the tradition of Betty Davis, to be an advocate for both students and teachers in the Abilene Independent School District.

Of course one other possibility is that Beckham and King could split a lot of the same voting constituency, and one of the other two candidates (John Young and Kevin Christian–both of whom are impressive) could forge ahead. Or what if the three Abilene candidates (Beckham, King, Christian) split the Abilene vote, and Young carried Sweetwater?

My guess? Mel will be facing Rob Beckham.

But whoever wins will be filling the position of a very good state rep! Thanks, Bob Hunter, for these many years of service to our district.

Standardized Tests

Published
by
Mike
on January 20, 2006
in justice, missional and politics
. 30 Comments

The idea behind merit pay scales for teachers is that we want the very best teaching possible for our students. We’ve all known teachers (though, truthfully, I haven’t known many) who were failing their children.

However, when the pay increases are tied to students’ performance on standardized tests, there is a huge problem. It encourages teachers to gravitate toward classrooms with fewer kids who are challenged–challenged socially, culturally, emotionally, and intellectually. In other words, if you can find a classroom full of kids from gated communities, your chances for increased pay skyrocket.

I like what Denver is doing: tying pay scales to teachers’ willingness to teach in classrooms with students who from the poorest families and those who are English-language learners.

Another possibility is to base the performance NOT on standardized tests but on the attainment of goals that have been agreed upon by teachers, parents, and school district representatives.

Having said that, I’m so thankful today for the (mostly) wonderful teachers my three children have had here in Abilene. It was very important to us that our kids go to school with students from other races and other economic situations.

- - - -

From Ben Witherington III, one of my favorite NT scholars:

We are not owners of this world; we are only stewards and caretakers of it, for God’s sake. The Bible does not support either a godless communistic philosophy of property and use of the world’s resources, nor does it support a godless capitalistic vision of the same. The Bible suggests there is neither private nor public property, only God’s property, of which we are all stewards. The whole modern theory of ownership is faulty, for we brought nothing with us into this world, and we will take none of it with us. It also follows from this theology of stewardship that since it belongs to God, we have an obligation to use and dispose of it all in a way that glorifies God and helps humankind. The theory of charity too often has as its essential premise “what’s mine is mine, but I may choose to share it with you.” The problem with this thesis is that the earth is the Lord’s and all that is therein. We have simply been entrusted with a small portion of it to tend and use for the good of God’s dominion while we are here.

Offering Invitations

Published
by
Mike
on December 2, 2005
in Church and politics
. 51 Comments

I read about half of N. T. Wright’s new book, Paul in Fresh Perspective, yesterday. Wow. The man is a force of nature when it comes to New Testament scholarship. More about it later.

- - - -

All right. Why I quit offering invitations years ago.

Has it ever hit you that the early church very likely didn’t end their house church gatherings with an altar call? As far as we know, no one came to the front, filled out a card, and said, “I haven’t been the example I should be.” The nature of their gatherings, however, offered ongoing chances to encourage each other, confess to each other, and pray for each other.

And through the vast majority of church history, the assemblies didn’t lead up to an invitation.

It’s tied into frontier revivalism. As the church pressed forward, the assemblies became focused on a time of response. Basically, worship gatherings became revivals or, as Churches of Christ have preferred, “Gospel Meetings.” (By the way, here is a good time to say I get weary of the discussion of whether our assemblies are for worship or for encouragement. They’re for both. Just because Paul points out that worship has broader implications in a Christian’s life doesn’t mean there isn’t something called worship that focuses on adoration of God and re-formation of God’s people.)

To me, this is a cultural thing that just doesn’t fit most of the time. It’s not the big ending, the reason for gathering.

In my mind, the big assembly isn’t the best place — most of the time — for the kind of responses you occasionally hear. That’s best made in smaller settings: with covenant groups, small groups, accountability groups, Bible classes, etc. Someplace where a group gathers around a person and commits to help them (and be helped by them) over the long haul.

And baptism? We have lots of baptisms. But they aren’t usually because people hear one message and walk to the front. It’s because they are in the process of being formed in the Way of Jesus, and baptism becomes an obvious part of that journey. Were there ever baptisms-on-the-spot in the NT? Yes, but not in the gatherings of the churches in response to an “invitation” (as far as we know).

The point of the sermon isn’t to see how many can walk to the front. It’s to continue moving people along into the story of Jesus, forming them into a Way that is counter-cultural.

If you preach on “loving your enemies,” e.g., the goal isn’t to have people walk down the aisle, make a confession, and then dismiss. The goal is to rattle people, shake them, and immerse them again into cruciform living. Hopefully it sends them out into families, small groups, and Bible classes to be stirred by the implications.

This isn’t to say that I never offer invitations. And it isn’t to say that my way is the right way.

I have noticed that when you get outside of Churches of Christ and a few other revivalist-based denominations, you don’t find many invitation songs. You do find constant invitations to continue pursuing the Way of Christ, however!

I very much like the movement now toward offering times of prayer, where people can bring prayer concerns (for repentance, for healing, for intercession) to leaders of the church. We’ve found that to be a very valuable time on Wednesday evenings, especially those evenings when people are invited to be anointed with oil. (More on that some other time.)

Again, this isn’t me telling others how to do it. Just a bit of insight into what I’ve been thinking.

- - - -

Yesterday my friend Mel Hailey made his formal announcement that he’s running for the state legislature. You can read about him at www.melhailey.com. He is chairman of the political science department at ACU, an elder at the University Church, and an incredible man. His wife, Jan, is a Bible faculty member at ACU and one of the best women you’ll meet in your life.

- - - -

Now . . . back to soccer.

Rosa Parks

Published
by
Mike
on October 25, 2005
in justice and politics
. 15 Comments

Why can we never remember the names of famous actors? It’s resorted to this. We had a date night this weekend and went to a movie. Later when we tried to explain which one, we couldn’t think of the name. All we could come up with was: “It’s the one with Legolas and Spiderman’s girlfriend.”

- - - -

The “mother of the civil rights movement,” Rosa Parks, has died. Her courageous decision almost half a century ago sparked a movement that was soon led by a Montgomery pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr. Here’s the account in Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters:

On December 1, 1955 . . . Rosa Parks left the Montgomery Fair department store late in the afternoon for her regular bus ride home. All thirty-six seats of the bus she boarded were soon filled, with twenty-two Negroes seated from the rear and fourteen whites from the front. Driver J. P. Blake, seeing a white man standing in the front of the bus, called out for the four passengers on the row just behind the whites to stand up and move to the back. Nothing happened. Blake finally had to get out of the driver’s seat to speak more firmly to the four Negroes. “You better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats,” he said. At this, three of the Negroes moved to stand in the back of the bus, but Parks responded that she was not in the white section and didn’t think she ought to move. She was in no-man’s-land. Blake said that the white section was where he said it was, and he was telling Parks that she was in it. As he saw the law, the whole idea of no-man’s-land was to give the driver some discretion to keep the races out of each other’s way. He was doing just that. When Parks refused again, he advised her that the same city law that allowed him to regulate no-man’s-land also gave him emergency police power to enforce the segregation codes. He would arrest Parks himself if he had to. Parks replied that he should do what he had to do; she was not moving. She spoke so softly that Blake would not have been able to hear her above the drone of normal bus noise. But the bus was silent. Blake notified Parks that she was officially under arrest. She should not move until he returned with the regular Montgomery police.

At the station, officers booked, fingerprinted, and incarcerated Rosa Parks. It was not possible for her to think lightly of being arrested. Having crossed the line that in polite society divided Negroes from niggers, she had reason to expect not only stinging disgrace among her own people but the least civilized attentions of the whites. When she was allowed to call home, her mother’s first response was to groan and ask, “Did they beat you?”

Shortly after that King spoke to a packed house, anxious to hear what he’d say. He said, “Let us say that we are not here advocating violence. We have overcome that. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. If we were incarcerated behind the iron curtains of a communistic nation–we couldn’t do this. If we were trapped in the dungeon of a totalitarian regime–we couldn’t do this. But the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right. . . . We are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream!”

(Don’t) Walk Pujols

Published
by
Mike
on October 18, 2005
in politics and sports
. 31 Comments

Early in the game, the Fox cameras zoomed in on a sign from an Astros fan that said simply: WALK PUJOLS.

Had they listened, the Astros would be resting up for the Series. Now they’re headed back to St. Louis, staving off the demolition of Busch Stadium a bit longer. Baseball’s greatest hitter popped a three-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning for a 5-4 win.

- - - -

Someone told me this week that he’d read an article about how men, while often conversationally challenged, often have an advantage in starting conversations. Since most guys like sports (though certainly not all), men can walk into a room full of strangers and count on a default conversation about sports. Even if it’s about a sport you don’t get (NASCAR), you understand the passion. Women, on the other hand, have to search for a topic that works. Is that right? (And if it’s right, why do you often see women so deeply engaged in conversations while guys are checking their watches?)

- - - -

Did others read the stuff that George Will has written about Harriet Miers? It was brutal. I would think after a few blasts from the left and lots of blasts from the right she’d be thinking, “It can’t be worth this.”

Agreeing to Disagree in the Election

Published
by
Mike
on October 30, 2004
in politics
. 6 Comments

Certainly it’s a weekend to pray for our nation (as, of course, we pray for all nations of the world). I, for one, will be glad to get politics ads off of television and radio. They’re pretty much all–Democratic and Republican–obnoxious to me.

A great memory from four years ago. Friends in Uganda were watching election results on a satellite tv at a local hotel. Others who were watching in the hotel told them how very sorry they were for America. When my friends asked why, they found out that the others were assuming there would be an ugly civil war in the United States. Al Gore had “clearly” won the election. (They understood popular vote, which Gore clearly won, but had no concept of electoral college.) They found out that the election turned on the decision of a state where the President’s brother was governor and where one of his state campaign co-chairs was secretary of state . . . and then on the decision of a Supreme Court that was heavily Republican-appointed.

They assumed there would be war.

But there wasn’t. There was anger. There were recounts. Then no recounts. Then appeals. But in the end, there was civility.

I hope there is a clear victor Tuesday night. (If the most recent polls are accurate, it sounds like there will be a clear winner.) But even if there isn’t–even if we’re in suspense for weeks again while votes are being counted in Ohio or Wisconsin and while appeals are being filed–aren’t you glad that the system of government holds up?

I’m especially thankful for the mature ways I’ve noticed so many Christians agreeing to disagree in this election. Apparently a majority of white Christians will vote for George Bush, while a majority of African-American Christians will vote for John Kerry. They’re apparently weighing different aspects of the campaigns and coming to different conclusions. Wouldn’t it be tragic if we erected walls saying, “Real Christians vote this way”? The last thing the body of Christ needs is ONE MORE THING to divide “the REAL Christians” (those who agree with ME) from the others.